GUWAHATI: Tahawwur Hussain Rana landed in Delhi on Thursday, April 10, following his extradition from the United States in connection with the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) is expected to formally arrest him in the capital before initiating custodial interrogation.
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Rana, a 64-year-old Pakistani-origin Canadian citizen, is accused of providing logistical support to the 10 terrorists who carried out coordinated attacks in Mumbai on 26 November 2008. His arrival comes days after the United States Supreme Court rejected his final legal challenge against extradition. Officials confirmed that he would be kept in a high-security cell at Tihar Jail, with jail authorities awaiting a court directive. He was previously lodged in a federal prison in Los Angeles during the course of the extradition proceedings initiated by India through a formal diplomatic note dated 4 December 2019.
According to reports, Rana is a known associate of David Coleman Headley, alias Daood Gilani, one of the principal conspirators in the Mumbai attacks. Headley, a US citizen with Pakistani origins, had conducted surveillance of various targets in Mumbai before the strikes. According to Indian investigators, Rana facilitated Headley’s movements by setting up a business front in Mumbai, thereby enabling reconnaissance missions that contributed to the planning of the attacks.
Former Union Home Secretary G.K. Pillai, who was in office during the time of the attacks, told a newspaper in an interview that while Rana’s role was more passive in nature, it was nonetheless critical. Pillai stated that the United States acted in “bad faith” by shielding Headley, whom he described as a double agent working for both US agencies and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Pillai claimed Headley had returned to India even after the attacks and could have been apprehended had his true identity been known.
Pillai also alleged that the Americans deliberately concealed Headley’s Pakistani lineage by allowing him to use a US passport that did not reveal his father's nationality. This allowed him to avoid surveillance despite frequent travel between India and Pakistan.
Meanwhile, survivor and eyewitness Devika Rotawan welcomed Rana’s extradition. Rotawan, who was nine years old when she was injured during the firing at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT), said justice had begun to catch up with the conspirators. Now 25, she demanded capital punishment for Rana and said that all individuals still operating from Pakistani territory must also be brought to justice.
The 2008 attacks, carried out by operatives of Lashkar-e-Taiba, left 166 people dead and hundreds injured across multiple locations in Mumbai. The attackers had infiltrated the city using the sea route from Karachi. Ajmal Kasab, the only surviving attacker, was captured, tried, and hanged in 2012 following a conviction.
